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Chautona Havig

Chautona Havig

Using story to connect YOU to the Master Storyteller

The Family Storyteller (and it isn’t who I thought it was!)

by Chautona Havig · 1 Comment

The storyteller.

If you said those words to me as a child, I would have immediately thought of one man–Grandpa Fullerton.  The man was a genius with words.  Now, honestly, when he began telling a story, there was a good chance you’d hear the “what should have happened” mingled with what the “did” happen.  As most storytellers do, he found himself almost unable to stick to bare facts sometimes.  And we all knew it.  I guess that means it was an “unwritten” understanding or something.  Doesn’t matter to me.  There was little more that I loved more than when Grandpa told  a story.

The Family Storyteller

But one thing I definitely loved more was when my dad did.  Dad had that rare talent of being able to tell the exact truth with such care and precision that it didn’t need varnish.  He smoothed the rough edges but left those edges there.  I guess you could say that Dad got a little “edgy” when he told a story.

In this way, Dad was like the greatest Storyteller of all time: Jesus.

I learned from Dad’s stories.  Although most were anecdotes from his life, occasionally he’d create an illustration that morphed into a story.  The earliest of these that I remember was when I was about four-years-old. To be brutally honest, I don’t recall what inspired it, and I suspect that I don’t want to.  I can see our living room in Fillmore, California as clearly as if I’d never left it.  We lived on Mountain View Street across from the elementary school.   There was an end table next to the couch and right beside the front door.  That is where my first story lesson began.

I must have either disobeyed or been appalled at my cousin’s disobedience (I often was–quite the self-righteous little twit even then!).  Dad hunkered down on his heels and tried to explain the difference between defiance and disobedience.  He pointed to the lamp and said, “Chautona….” Let me pause for a minute.  The day I realize I’ll never hear my father say my name on this planet is going to be one of the worst days of my life.  With one, three-syllable word, my father can convey pride, dismay, shame, rebuke, love, joy…. I’ve never heard anyone be able to express himself with many different emotions more than Dad when he speaks my name.

Okay, back to the story about Dad’s story.  So he said, “Chautona, (sigh) if I tell you not to touch this lamp, you know you aren’t supposed to.  But if you walk away, go play for a while and come back, forget, and then touch the lamp, that’s disobedience.  Yes, you didn’t obey.  But you forgot.  And forgetting makes it disobedience.  You’re still not supposed to touch the lamp.  Period. You still have to take responsibility for that.”  (Yes, my father spoke with a rather varied and strong vocabulary.  The first words I remember hearing were, “Slow down and enunciate.”  I knew what that meant by 2 years old.  I had kids in high school who didn’t know what enunciate meant.)

Then Dad gave another scenario.

“But let’s say I tell you not to touch the lamp and you look right at me and do it.  That is defiance.  It’s defiance if you remember later and do it anyway.  It’s defiance if you try to do it when I’m not looking and you know I’ll never know.  Disobedience can be overlooked when it’s truly a mistake or it’s been a long time.  Defiance can never be overlooked.”

Just a simple explanation of two related but distinct words, but it made such a huge impression on me that I’ve never forgotten it. Through Dad’s stories, I learned how to choose when to “tell” on someone (almost never) and when not to–and why.  I learned how to respect people I had found unrespectable.

Through those stories, I learned to understand the value of story.

Dad also used a different form of storytelling to teach me.  Seated on Uncle Lon’s hearth in Camarillo or a kitchen chair in Grandma’s apartment on Osborn, he’d pull his guitar from the pink flannel cover Grandma had made for it years earlier, and he’d play.  He sang old ballads like “Bonnie  Black Bess.”

When Dad played that song, you could hear the hoofbeats on the road to London–hoofbeats that would save Dick Turpin’s life and cost his horse, Bess, hers.  My throat would ache with the heartbreak of it all.  He’d sing of a blind child aching with the loss of her mother and the realization that a new mama was coming to their home.  I remember wondering how he could sing of her gravestone that read, “There’ll be no blind ones there.”  The first dozen times I attempted to sing it for myself, my voice cracked and broke trying to get through the last couple of verses.

He sang happier ones, of course.  “Concert Garden.”  I loved the story of a young man who left his friends to go home because “Somebody’s waiting for me. Somebody loves me I know.  Somebody’s wond’rin’ where I can be and what can be keeping me so.  Somebody’s heart is sad and waiting so anxiously.  There’s a light shining bright in a window tonight.  ‘Cause somebody’s waiting for me.”  He’s teased about his sweetheart, so he brings his friends home and points through the window where an old woman is praying.  He says, “She’s my mother, she’s my sweetheart, she’s the one I meant tonight….”

Those songs taught me values through their stories.

But I admit, I loved the heart-rending tales of songs like “Tragic Romance” and the typical romance of “California Joe” equally well. Those ballad writers–they were storytellers too.  And through those heart-wrenchers, I learned how to sympathize, how to “weep with those who weep.”  Through them, I learned that life is full of terribly painful moments, but we don’t live them alone.  Others have borne them and can help us thorugh it.  And in our turn, we will help others.

I had three songs I held in rotation.  I tried to be careful not to ask for each one too often.  “Blind Child’s Prayer” I asked for most, although it wasn’t my absolute favorite.  But it had fewer verses than my true favorite, “California Joe.”  That one has twenty-six verses with eight lines to a verse.   The tune to that one was the inspiration for my own ballad in Argosy Junction.  But, if no one else asked (I could never count on Uncle Lon.  His choice was always “The Ship.”), I would always go with “Cowboy Jack.”  For some reason, Dad never balked at that one.  Maybe it was short enough.  Maybe he loved it himself.  I never knew.

But, it’s why I chose it for the first of my Ballads from the Hearth series.  I wanted a book that epitomized the love our family has for these old songs.  I took Jack’s story and then everything went crazy.  But that’s another story altogether.  Strange, isn’t it.  All my life I’ve considered my mother’s father to be the storyteller of the family, but really, my father is the one I knew and loved best.

For the words to “Cowboy Jack”, see THIS POST.

 

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Comments

  1. Angela Martin says

    August 30, 2016 at 11:44 am

    I just got your email and took a moment to pray for you, asking God’s hands on your computer, your ministry, and your characters. Just wanted you to know! Hugs and blessings!

    Reply

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The Because Fiction Podcast

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Episode 204: A Chat with Sarah Sundin about The Sound of Light
byChautona Havig

A chat with Sarah Sundin is always fun, so when I learned we’d be discussing her upcoming release, The Sound of Light, last October, I was excited. Well… we chatted, and it’s finally time to share that interview. Listen in to what the title means, where Sarah came up with it, and the delightful story that she’s got waiting for us. I’m glad this episode came out in time for me to get the 40% off and free shipping deal from Baker because I apparently didn’t order it back when we chatted!

Note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.

How I Fell in Love With This Haunting Title

I didn’t know much about Denmark and WWII, so chatting with Sarah about The Sound of Light shed definite light (no pun intended) on the history of the Danes and how they stood up to Hitler… and got away with it (for the most part).

The Sound of Light tells the story of a physicist who meets a “slow, dull” guy who intrigues her in spite of herself. Come on… if that doesn’t grab you… Maybe the fact that this slow dude is really an Olympic rower in disguise who uses his father’s company as a front for who he is and how he helps Jews escape?  Yeah. That.

As always, Sarah Sundin has done her research and the result is a gripping story of resistance, protection, and ultimately love for God, our fellow man, and maybe… each other.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for my copy of The Sound of Light to arrive.

The Sound of Light by Sarah Sundin

When the Germans march into Denmark, Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt exchanges his nobility for anonymity, assuming a new identity so he can secretly row messages for the Danish Resistance across the waters to Sweden.

American physicist Dr. Else Jensen refuses to leave Copenhagen and abandon her research–her life’s dream. While printing resistance newspapers, she hears stories of the movement’s legendary Havmand–the merman–and wonders if the mysterious and silent shipyard worker living in the same boardinghouse has something to hide.

When the Occupation cracks down on the Danes, these two passionate people will discover if there is more power in speech . . . or in silence. Bestselling author of more than a dozen WWII novels, Sarah Sundin offers pens another story of ordinary people responding to extraordinary circumstances with faith, fortitude, and hope for a brighter future.

You can also grab this book from Baker Book House at 40% off with free shipping! (which is cheaper than the Kindle version!)

And you can learn more about Sarah Sundin on her WEBSITE.

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Reposted from @sarahsundinauthor A DNA test reveals a family secret, leading to a journal of a Jewish woman in occupied Greece. A rich and powerful World War II novel from @authorliztolsma . More here on my blog: https://www.sarahsundin.com/what-i-would-tell-you-by-liz-tolsma/ (Clickable link in the Linktree in my bio under Book Recommendations)
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